Have you ever needed to play out a scene that would of been embarassing to you or between your character and another that would of sucked up hours of game time leaving everyone else bored to tears? Scene Journals are your answer.

Do you understand Six Degrees of Seperation?

If you are a GM you will frequently find yourself in need of quality allies and enemies for your campaign and find yourself pressed for time.  Any old NPC will often not do.  You want someone with a full conceptions and some history.

I have to admit I HATE the number of casual magic items that appear in the average fantasy game, D20 being the worst. The amount of magic is being reinforced by the rules and the treasure chart. They are just “power ups” of the video game nature. They don’t add anything to the game except requiring bigger and badder bad guys.

A fight scene should be more than just rolling dice and counting numbers. It should be a chance for you to roleplay.

After reading a MoonHunter campaign write up, Captain Penguin Says, "THIS IS MADNESS! MADNESS!
So…..Comprehensive….Making…Penguin’s….brain…...dissolve..

Say, MoonHunter, have any packs to give to a character to make them actually roleplay instead of just dictating their character’s actions? The majority of my players just do this.

ME:“You see a grizzled old knight with a scar over his face. He walks up to you and greets you with an ancient Cardomian salute, though he is unfamiliar to your eye.”
THEM:“I say “Hi.”
ME:“That’s it?”
THEM:“Yes. Now, I walk around him and open the door.”
ME:“But, but, he’s an important story character!”
THEM:“F**k the story! I want gold and XP, dammit!”
ME:“I hate you more than you’ll ever know.”

Action sequences in movies are fast, furious, and over all to fast.  They are exciting moments that most gamers are looking forward to.  Yet combat in most games is slow, ponderous, and takes up much game time. Gamers tend to blame the game systems. It is not the System, it is the group.

This one of many articles I am posting up about game design. It explains some of the minimum requirements for a product to be produced or even be “good”. This is also useful for posts as well.

When my first born came into the world, my gaming life skidded to a halt. However, in a strange way, my gaming life continued.

I am not a normal fantasy GM. If a player is delving through a dark tomb searching for loot in my campaign, he is probably on a fruitless quest. I dislike the dungeon crawl. I have since the earliest years of DnD. I mean where in Tolkein did they really crawl through a dungeon or other tomb/ place of mystery?

The world is full of different measurement systems. Some are old, some new, some obvious, some obscure. Each one is important enough to some group of people to be codified and passed down through the years. These are the ones that might be useful for gamers.

The measurements on Arth center around The Emperor and the Imperium.  The Imperium imposes certain standards upon its subjects to make communication and trade between areas easier.  Some of the most important was how much each coin was worth (and its basic size), the common language (imperial-low and high), and a system of measures.

The Followers of The Book and The Word believe in the strict adherence to the Law and The Word.

The Church of the Message was built upon the ruins of the various churches that fell once their clerical powers were lost.

The True Deity’s worship is kept quiet and out of the public eye. Public Religions persecute Mothon worshipers and their strange powers.

The Vicean Church is one that expresses the mysteries of existence and explains the process of life and death and life beyond. While other churches have "aims" and "goals", the Vicean church focuses on the soul and faith of its members (and all peoples) and the health of the community and its church. After a few religious conflicts or magical pogroms, the Vicean Church becomes very popular with people and governments, as they avoid such things.

The Priests of The One are shaman scholars, showing the way of The Spirit, The One to the people. They do not like being called a church, as history has shown that all churches eventually become organizations and dominant ones.

We have your gods, but only the merest mention of worship, priests, and temples. This thread is the correction for that oversight

In the begining there was a great Darkness. Then there was light. It was Helion.